


Christmas In Glasgow

by Finn4



Category: Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27771883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finn4/pseuds/Finn4
Summary: Before wrapping up their tour and heading home for Christmas, Billy Dunne learns something about Daisy Jones that changes the way he sees her. And something that he can’t help himself from trying to fix.
Relationships: Billy Dunne/Daisy Jones
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Daisy Jones And The Six: A Christmas Anthology





	Christmas In Glasgow

**Author's Note:**

> Christmas Playlist Song Selection:
> 
> Glasgow Love Theme, Craig Armstrong
> 
> Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Coldplay

**Jonah** **Berg:** I wrote my first story on Daisy Jones And The Six before they were really even Daisy Jones and The Six. And when I look back on it now, I know I was getting a spit shined version of them. They were performers, after all. And they performed on stage and off. And when I first sat down with them, hung out with them, that winter in Glasgow...hell, I still don’t know what was real and what wasn’t. 

But I do know one thing: Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne didn’t hate each other. If they did, it was because they felt like they had to. Whether it was to sell records or to keep the band intact, that much I couldn’t tell you. But my job is reading people, you know? And I had a good read on both of them. 

**Julia:** What was different about them? That first time you met them and interviewed them...as opposed to all the subsequent interviews.

**Jonah** **Berg:** You mean my best article to date? Where Billy Dunne told the free world how much he hated Daisy Jones?

**Julia:** Yeah, that one. 

**Jonah Berg:** I don’t know. Like I said. They weren’t even a band yet. They were Daisy Jones. AND The Six. So maybe they didn’t threaten each other yet? Maybe they hadn’t learned that they were too much alike? Maybe it was the drugs? Maybe it was the fact that it was weeks before Christmas and everyone just had a touch of that holiday magic? I don’t know.

**Julia:** Holiday magic...

**Jonah** **Berg:** Oh, come on, you know what I mean. How people trip over themselves to help a homeless guy on the street that they normally wouldn’t even look at. Or you drive around and smile at Christmas lights instead of cursing at traffic? Maybe that was Billy and Daisy. (He pauses and laughs) Musical Mistletoe.

**Julia:** Musical Mistletoe. 

**Daisy:** Those days all stand out so clearly to me. And believe me not a lot from those days does. But I remember so much about that first tour overseas. I remember how it felt like we were in this other world. I mean, we were. But it somehow took some pressure off. It was...and please don’t take this the wrong way...but Billy was different. Being away from his family. Don’t get me wrong. I think he spent more money on pay phone calls to Camilla than Eddie and Pete spent on weed. But he just felt different. I spent a lot of time and energy around him trying not to read into everything he said or did...but often times wondering if I wasn’t reading enough.

**Billy:** That night with Jonah Berg in Glasgow was fun. You know? Just...actual fun. For a minute there we all forgot everything that there was to be pissed off about. I mean Eddie even bought me a soda. Instead of giving me shit for not drinking. Part of it was we were in this divey Scottish bar with these locals and all of these Christmas decorations that you’d swear came out of someone’s grandmother’s basement. Just thrown everywhere. You couldn’t help but just smile and have a good damn time. I was glad Jonah was there that night. And not any of the dozens of others. I remember Daisy...God, that woman. We are in this bar where you could lose a shoe from how sticky the floors were and she takes her damn sandals off and dances barefoot. Sandals. In December. In Scotland. (He laughs) You just weren’t gonna change her. No one was. When we all left the rest of the band walked off with Jonah and I hung back just watching her try to decide if she was going to put her sandals on or walk barefoot through the street to get to the hotel. (He pauses) I mean...I wasn’t gonna leave her there to walk alone.

**Daisy:** Billy was leaning against the outside of this bar. You know those big old cobblestone buildings. Fog coming out of his mouth in the cold. It looked like a damn Christmas card. And he was giggling. Not laughing. Giggling. Watching me fuck with my shoes. So I thought...to hell with it. I carried them over my shoulder and hustled to catch up with him. It...it wasn’t usually....just the two of us.

_______________________

_ “I’m not carrying you...” Billy called through the cold as he tucked his hands deeper into his pockets in defiance, even as he grinned. _

_ “I would let my toes curl up and fall off in the snow before I would let you carry me, Billy Dunne.” Daisy shot back without missing a beat, meeting his smile with an even broader one that eventually morphed into a lip bite as she reached his side. _

_ Billy offered her his arm and she stared at it a moment too long before deciding to take it, looping her hand through his elbow before he closed it tight against his side. She placed her hand on his arm as they started walking, both of them quietly aware of the charm of it all.  _

_ “I think they missed a spot...” Daisy whispered nodding ahead to a rare unlit building. The street was otherwise covered with lights and tinsel and garlands and greens. _

_ “Go big or go home.” Billy chuckled to himself, taking it in.  _

_“I love it actually. Growing up...we didn’t do the whole Christmas thing. No tree. No...yeah.” Daisy was lost in the memory and taking in her surroundings. Billy watched her closely for a long while before she realized it._

_“Oh fuck, don’t look at me like that,” Daisy nudged him as the look of empathetic pity washed from his face, “I bet you guys had the picture perfect Christmas right? Or did the skeletons in your closet all come out to play for the holidays, Billy Dunne?”_

_Billy inhaled at her words and then blew a long stream of air into the night._

_“We didn’t have a lot. My dad left. My mom did what she could. But yeah...she always tried pretty hard for Christmas. Yeah.”_

_Daisy was quiet at his admission. There was something real and vulnerable in it that she could only just wrap her mind around. She tightened her arm on his and sighed._

_“We are so different, you and me, but not that different at all.”_

_Her voice was longing and deep and meaningful. And he chuckled._

_“That booze makes you pretty introspective, Jones.”_

_They walked in silence for awhile before talking about the band. About the tour. About the article. Both of them tiptoeing around the elephant in the room: was Daisy Jones going to become part of The Six._

_When Daisy would bring up the future of the band, Billy would steer the conversation to his family: a wife and daughter at home and twins on the way any day. It sliced through the energy between them every time he did it, and Daisy started to realize what Billy already had: it was every bit intentional._

_When they reached the hotel, Billy walked Daisy to her room. She paused before working the key into the door._

_“Big day off tomorrow. Last day before we head home. What kinds of things keep Billy Dunne busy?”_

_Billy laughed at her question as he ran his hand through his hair._

_“First of all, you don’t have to refer to me by my full name. It makes me feel like I’m in trouble...”_

_ “Aren’t you?” She interrupted him, meeting his gaze. He cleared his throat.  _

_ “Secondly, I’m gonna Christmas shop for Julia. She’s got this obsession with teddy bears so I try to get her one every time I’m somewhere new. Maybe just...a little of that...” he paused as Daisy nodded, realizing that he was once again using Julia to deflect, “what about Daisy Jones? What will she spend her last day in Glasgow doing?” _

_ Daisy laughed as she opened the door. _

_ “Oh you know. Get shit faced until I don’t remember my own name, pass out in some bar, hope I don’t run into Jonah Berg....” Daisy laughed through her sarcastic rant before she realized some of the color from Billy’s face was draining, “I’m kidding. You know that right? I’ll probably just...write.” _

_ There was another spell of heavy and awkward silence. It hung thick between them even as their eyes played back and forth, Billy rocking on his heels.  _

_“We could...write. If you want to come in?” Daisy held the door open with her back, creating space for him to enter. He smiled at her, and then glanced at his watch. It was almost four in the morning, Glasgow time._

_“Camilla will be putting Julia to bed. I need to call and check on them. But...rain check?”_

_Billy tried to be blasé but there was something else hidden in his voice. Daisy smiled uneasily._

_“Good luck with all that Christmas tomorrow.” she whispered, trying desperately to mask her longing and envy. Billy only nodded as he tucked his hands into his pockets, whispered a goodnight, and headed down the hall to his room. Daisy watched him leave before shutting her door, slinking into her dark room that was lit only by the Christmas lights streaming through the windows from the street they had just created her new favorite Christmas memory on._

_______________________

**Billy:** It was hard to be so far away from Camila. Knowing she was weeks away from having the twins. And man, those last few weeks were a drag. I owed her so much. So so much. For the way I had blown it before. That night I sat on the phone with her for hours. She fell asleep and I still kept the receiver on my ear. Running up all sorts of charges I didn’t care a thing about. She’d wake up and whisper to me every so often. It was the best I could do. That and...just shopping that next day for every little thing I could get my girls that would fit into my bag. I wound up leaving two jackets behind and stuffing a bear into Eddie’s bass just to get all the shit I bought home.

**Daisy:** That last day I was in Glasgow was bittersweet. I didn’t know that I would ever tour with this band again. I got weirdly sentimental. I sat in my room and wrote music about it. Then I just journaled about it. Then I took my journals and made them into lyrics. It was the middle of the day before I left. I just put a jacket on...and sandals. And I just wandered. I ate. I drank. I wandered. It felt like the inside of a snow globe.

**Billy:** I spent that last day alone. I couldn’t find Graham in the morning and really that was ok. I didn’t really have a lot of time when I was alone. I’m pretty sure I was even lost a couple of times but I always figured it out. Made it back to the hotel with way too much stuff to try to take home. 

**Julia:** Gifts....for...

**Billy:** For you, your mom, the babies.

**Julia:** ...

**Billy:** I couldn’t stop thinking about Daisy saying that she had never had a Christmas. I mean, I thought she had everything. I grew up with nothing. She had cars worth more money than my mom ever saw, right? It just...really made me think. That someone like that who seemed to have everything. I mean...I knew. I knew from the way she used that it wasn’t perfect. But that? Really stuck with me for some reason.

**Daisy:** It was close to eight by the time I got back. I was so tired. I wanted to pack up and sleep and barely even wake up to catch our red eye back to LAX. When I got back to the hotel my door was wedged open. Like someone had pried it open. Scared the shit out of me. I froze. I listened. I scanned the hall. I was going to go back to the front desk and have someone check it, or at the very least get Rod. Then I noticed...the room was, I dunno how else to say it...glowing.

_____________________

_Daisy slowly pushed the door open with her foot, keeping herself squarely and safely in the hallway until the door was all the way open._

_“Hello?!” She called loudly into the open door, but it wasn’t a voice that answered her. Instead there was a slight and soft strumming of a guitar lilting through the air and into the hall. Daisy arched an eyebrow and suddenly felt decidedly unthreatened as she crept past the threshold and into her room._

_As she turned the corner she put her bags down. She wasn’t sure if she sat them down or dropped them. There, in her otherwise dark hotel room, was a tree taller than she was. It was evergreen, full and fresh with a scent that filled her room. Huge colorful lights were strewn throughout it and perched at the top was a tattered old vinyl record. It was the tree that caught her attention, but it was the figure next to it that held it._

_Billy Dunne...in his signature denim on denim but now also adorned in a thick plaid scarf and Santa hat, was strumming the chords to Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. It wasn’t until the glow of the Christmas lights blurred and shone that Daisy realized her eyes were glassy. And as Billy started to sing the first few lines, Daisy slunk to the floor and sat...leaning back on the heels of her hands as she folded her knees together. She watched Billy smile and sing as he glanced at his fingers for the changes before she joined him on the bridge._

_“Faithful friends who are dear to us..gather near to us....once more.”_

_Billy and Daisy finished the lyrics together...in harmony...before Billy gracefully wrapped up and pulled his guitar from his chest._

_“Does this mean you’ll keep me around for a Christmas album?” Daisy tried to make light of a still-heavy conversation, even as she wiped a tear from her cheek. Billy sat his guitar on a chair and knelt in front of her, resting his elbows on his knees._

_ “You did this...for me.” Daisy whispered as she looked at him. She could see him blush, even in the faint Christmas tree lights. He stared at her until he couldn’t anymore. _

_ “No. I did it for me. I couldn’t live with myself knowing you’ve never had a proper Christmas. So let’s get this over with....” Billy rocked back on his heels until he slumped from kneeling to sitting. He crossed his feet in opposition to Daisy, who sat up facing him in a sort of floor picnic. _

_ Billy produced two plates, each with a giant slab of fruit cake and a stein full of egg nog. He sat a fork in between them. _

_ “It’s shit and you’ll hate it, but it’s tradition so...here it is. I could only find one fork. You want to use your hands or should I?” _

_ He smirked long enough for Daisy to grab the fork...only to carve a giant piece of cake and lean across to him...pushing it at his mouth until he laughed enough to open his lips and take her bite. He reached for the fork in the same movement and then took an equally large chunk to feed her. She giggled as she ate it, catching crumbs that fell from her mouth onto her white shirt. She leaned from him in protest. _

_ “God...that’s awful.” _

_ “Merry Christmas.” Billy smiled as he took a giant swig of eggnog. He passed it to her and she did the same, wincing at it’s taste as well. Billy laughed heartily. _

_ “Not as good without the rum I know. Sorry.” _

_She laughed as she wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. Having ceremoniously eaten food they both hated they sat in the silent glow of Christmas watching each other like they wondered who would speak first._

_“Thank you.” Daisy finally whispered. Billy smiled sheepishly._

_“Thank you. You know...for putting up with my shit.” Daisy was about to rebut his comment when Billy reached under the tree and pulled out a box that had gone unnoticed by her._

_ “Billy....I didn’t....” Daisy tucked a strand of hair nervously behind her ear as Billy interrupted. _

_ “Hell, Jones, I know you didn’t. I wouldn’t have wanted you to. You...” Billy paused as he sat the box down next to Daisy, clearing the uneaten food from between their four knees, “look you made this tour and this band....that’s your gift to me alright? I’ll always be grateful for that.” _

_ Daisy stared at him, feeling her eyes glaze against her will. Did he want her to stay? Or was he saying...this was it? She stared longer than she meant to. _

_ “Don’t look at me, look at the box...” Billy finally managed through a slight chuckle. Daisy was shook from the pseudo trance she was in to the sloppily wrapped package between her knees. She frowned slightly through a smile. _

_ “Bad wrapping jobs are also part of the whole deal, ok?” Billy watched nervously as she opened it, slowly at first, and then with the childlike energy of all the years she had missed. She finally removed enough of the paper to unfold the box’s lid and pull out wads of tissue paper. To her surprise, and eliciting a huge eye roll and smile: she produced a pair of slim grey duck boots, lined with fur, laced up atop thick rubber soles. She giggled to herself as she danced them playfully in her hands...unsure of what to say to him.  _

_ Billy smiled to himself as he reared forward into his knees and lifted his arm to unravel the plaid scarf that was around his neck. He pulled it slowly from himself and in the same movement rolled his arm around the frame of her face until the scarf surrounded her. He gently pulled one loose end to tuck around her.  _

_ “This is for you, too. If I can’t keep the drugs from killing you....I can at least prevent the frostbite from doing it.” His voice was slower and precise. Deeper than the timbre he usually carried. Daisy looked down at his arms and hands as he wrapped her. She inhaled deeply and realized that even as his hands left her shoulders and neck...his scent remained.  _

_ “It smells like you...” she whispered more to herself than to Billy. _

_ “I’m sorry...” he answered, only inches from her. She lifted her face to see him, barely enough room between them for both of their breath. _

_ “I’m not.” She responded. Quickly. With no thought and even less regret. He saw the lights reflect in her eyes as she saw her own eyes in his and that moment hung between them and made them both unmistakingly aware that it would be a memory that would stay with them. Daisy’s heart pounded and Billy felt the heat in his chest slowly making it’s way up his neck and to his face. He closed the space between them as Daisy let her eyes flutter closed, still lost in the scent of him around her neck.  _

_She felt his lips. Warm and soft, full of hot breath, gently...on her forehead._

_Billy was already on his feet when she opened her eyes._

_“That red eye is gonna come early. Do me a favor. Wear the boots to the airport even if you never wear them again.” He smiled as he moved to grab his guitar and Daisy stood._

_“Thank you. This was...this was unexpected.”_

_“That’s me,” he answered mischievously, “Merry Christmas, Daisy.”_

_“Merry Christmas, Billy.”_

_They shared a smile as Billy let himself out, the door closing behind him. He leaned his back against it and took three long breaths. Fighting with everything he had to think about Camila. Julia. The babies that he would be meeting for first time any day now. He had done the right thing by all of them. Daisy, too. It had to be enough._

_ Daisy pressed against the other side of the door. Leaning her forehead against it as she whispered again: _

_ “Merry Christmas, Billy.” _

_ She slowly walked to bed, still wrapped in his scarf and in his smell. She fell asleep in a sea of thoughts about him...under the soft glow of the tree he had bought for her...surrounded by the love and care that no one else had ever taken the time to give to her.  _

_ And for that one moment in time...she felt like she was his.  _

_ She pulled she scarf to her nose and whispered again. _

_ “Merry Christmas, Billy.” _


End file.
